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This chapter describes the business goals, purpose, and strategy of public defense and military services. It reinforces defense and military organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public sector cultures. The bureaucratic culture of diplomacy is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. Additionally, the authors explain why focusing on the beliefs layer is the dominant layer and the essential starting point for analysis in military cultures. The public service culture (Tier 2) is a mediating and grounding culture for the military. It is firmly grounded in the foundational values of the state. The chapter outlines the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in the defense and military landscape. Finally, the potential value and challenges of developing internal knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) cultures are explored.

Education for Sustainable Development and graduate employability are key agendas within Higher Education, and career-related events provide a context that caters to both simultaneously. There is a need for greater integration of academic department and career service teams in developing event management that systematically considers the potential to raise awareness of sustainability-related careers. This can maximise student personal and professional growth through sustainability-related career events, which simultaneously benefit the student through shaping personal and professional ‘purpose’, society through impact on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and university impact-related measures. By approaching events as a source of empowering students to become aware of, and actively seek out careers in which they can have a positive impact on people and planet, universities can provide a pipeline of sustainability ‘actioners and transformers’. This chapter illuminates the potential actions between career service teams and academic departments in developing information-related events about sustainability-related careers. It extends a popular employability framework to sustainability, presented with an illustrative case in a UK study context aligned with the sustainability ‘Thinker, Actioner and Transformer’ typology. An analysis of career service information enables clear recommendations to be provided on how academic teams, career and other operational services might coordinate approaches. It is proposed that the ultimate commitment of growth in transformation might well be to nurture students as activists for change, presented through the topical analysis of ‘fossil-free’ career events. This is very much a starting point, and it is hoped that the chapter provides an opening for further discussion.

This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the urban outcomes of smart city projects, focusing on their primary objectives. The first objective is to facilitate the management and flow of information, data, and resources to enhance resource efficiency, sustainability, and the quality of life for citizens and stakeholders. This chapter offers insights into the urban objectives of smart city projects within the local ecosystem, with a specific emphasis on digital and key urban outcomes. It provides an overview of the digital outcomes, including the advancement of digital systems for safety and urban monitoring, the provision of customized digital services, and the promotion of citizen engagement through digital platforms. This chapter also evaluates the environmental outcomes of smart city projects, such as improved quality of life, increased urban efficiency, and contributions to a sustainable environment. To provide a well-rounded understanding, interviews with policymakers and city managers, as well as case studies from cities like London, Medellin, Helsinki, Singapore, Girona, and San Diego, are incorporated. Furthermore, this chapter incorporates data and findings from top-tier international journals to provide a clear understanding of the impact of smart cities on the local ecosystem.

Public libraries are incubators for collective action in the knowledge economy. As three case studies from the United States and Singapore demonstrate, public libraries can serve as influential champions that garner financial resources, communicate an urgent need for change, and respond to the unmet information and economic needs of marginalized individuals and communities. In the Raise Up Radio (RUR) case, public librarians engaged schools, museums, youth, and families in rural communities to develop and deliver STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) content over local radio stations. In collaboration with organizational partners, RUR librarians created a model for library-community-radio projects for the rural United States. In the What Health Looks Like (WHLL) case, public librarians engaged senior citizens in discussions of health and the creation of health comics. In partnership with an interdisciplinary health research team, WHLL librarians developed a pilot for library-community-public health projects aimed at information dissemination and health narrative generation. In the Singapore shopping mall libraries case, the National Library Board (NLB) created public libraries in commercial spaces serving working families, senior citizens, and the Chinese community. The NLB developed an exportable model for locating information centers in convenient, popular, and useful business spaces. These case studies demonstrate how libraries are nodes in the knowledge economy, providing vital services such as preservation of cultural heritage, technology education, community outreach, information access, and services to working families, small- and medium-size businesses, and other patrons. In the years to come, public libraries will be called upon to respond to shifting social norms, inequitable opportunities, emergencies and disasters, and information asymmetries. As the cases of RUR, WHLL, and the shopping mall libraries show, public librarians have the vision and capacities to serve as influential champions for collective action to solve complex problems and foster sustainable development and equitable participation in the knowledge economy.

This study aims to identify blockchain-related innovation trends that can improve trust networks in a smart city's transport and supply chain networks. Trust networks are crucial in building and maintaining the trust of citizens in smart cities. By promoting transparency and accountability, facilitating collaboration and innovation, enhancing citizen participation and protecting privacy and security, trust networks can help to ensure that smart cities are developed and implemented in a responsible and sustainable way. A systematic literature review identifies 60 conceptual and empirical studies. This research focuses on the current problems and developing procurement and supply chain strategy and the potential benefits of using blockchain in these areas. It suggests ways for the smart city's transport and supply chain networks to utilise blockchain to improve operations and supply chain strategy and identifies innovation trends related to blockchain. The study also includes a systematic literature review and Blockchain Transformation and Influence model as the basis to enhance trust networks in the supply chain.

As the consumer-centric approach is evolving in the 21st century, especially in the post-COVID-19 era, people seek unique experiences. Adopting co-creation in promoting a destination implies involving tourists, stakeholders and organisers in creating value for a product or service. The innovative strategy of co-creating experiences encourages tourists' engagement, leading to destination promotion. Some notable examples of co-creation in tourism are gastronomic tours, virtual tours and travel guides. This chapter aims at the significance of co-creating experiences at events that lead to destination promotion. Co-creation of experiences at events brings the spotlight from the stage to the audience and is considered the future of the experience economy. The study presents a case study of Jal Mahotsav in Madhya Pradesh, India. The study highlights the multi-stakeholder approach adopted by the authorities to co-create the event experience.

The smart destination can be defined as a destination that deploys information communications technologies (ICTs) and other technological tools for interactive/participative engagement with prospective visitors. The rationale is to enhance the residents' quality of life as well as the tourists' experiences of the destinations they visit. This chapter discusses about digitization strategies and on marketing superstructures affecting destinations. It advances a conceptual framework through the development of an Attracting, Stay, and Return (ASR) Model that is suitable for smart destinations. It relies on descriptive case studies to conceptualize smart tourism destinations. This contribution reiterates the importance of having a well-designed website that presents appropriate content to entice the prospective travelers' curiosity about destinations. It offers valuable insights and advances new knowledge on smart marketing approaches that are intended to increase the destination management organizations' outreach with tourists at each stage of the ASR Model.

Cities evolved into quite complex urban systems. The rigid management process must reflect the complexity of the current political, social, and economic environment. With the vast city growth, citizens experience new difficulties – traffic congestion, pollution, immigration, overcrowding, and inadequate services.

In our research, we analyze problems and benefits that occur with the growing complexity and offer a new concept considering every city as a live and constantly developing complex adaptive system of many participants and actors that operate in an uncertain environment. These actors (residents, businesses, transport, energy, water supply providers, entertainment, and others) are the main elements of city life.

The new concept of “Smart City 5.0” is based on a previously developed model of Smart City 4.0 (compared with Industry 4.0) and implements the Urban Digital Ecosystem, where every element can be represented by a smart agent operating on its behalf. It is shown that smart services can interact vertically and horizontally in the proposed ecosystem, supporting competition and cooperation behavior based on specialized network protocols for balancing the conflicting interests of different city actors.

The chapter describes the design principles and the general architecture of the Urban Digital Ecosystem, including the basic agent of smart service, protocols of the agent’s negotiation, the architecture, and basic principles Smart City knowledge base.

The developed evolutionary methodology of implementation will ensure a minimum of disruptions to city services during its transformation into an urban ecosystem to harmoniously balance all spheres of life and the contradictory interests of different city actors.

India is a diverse country in which the development of services for children with disabilities presents many challenges. There is evidence that progress towards the provision of educational and therapeutic services has been considerable in the metropolitan cities, with reports of many examples of good and innovative practice. Rural communities are often less well served, and families living in some areas continue to face challenges when attempting to gain support for their children with disabilities. This chapter interrogates the situation for families in districts in southern and central India. The authors draw upon recent research to consider how the challenges of providing a multi-disciplinary support mechanism can be delivered to those living in these areas. Issues related to co-ordination of services, recruitment and retention of professionals and allocation of resources are considered through an examination of the socio-economic conditions confronted by families and professionals. Case study evidence from projects aimed at providing effective services are presented and discussed.